Sunday, 24 October 2010

Ahh, the pleasure of a post big match win for Arsenal. I am obviously in a much better mood than I was three weeks ago after the Chelsea defeat, and it feels great.
I'm very pleased and proud of the performance and result today. Three weeks ago at Chelsea we performed well but didn't get the result, whereas today we got both. Fabianski, Nasri, Song and Fabregas were fabulous and the rest of the team were good too:
Fabianski- 8
Sagna- 8
Squillaci- 7
Djourou- 6 (improved as the game got on)
Clichy- 7
Fabregas- 9
Song- 9
Denilson- 8
Nasri- 9
Chamakh- 7
Arshavin- 7
Rosicky- 7
Walcott- 6
Bendtner- 7

My man of the match was Nasri, just pipping Fabregas and Song. He showed such quality and intelligence today and is a highly under-rated player IMO. Great goal, fantastic pass for the third goal, worked back and defended well and kept the ball very well. Fabregas passed, as always, excellently and despite the penalty miss was one of the best players on the pitch because of his positioning, work ethic and because of the way he is always at the centre of what we do. Alex Song, like the rest of the team, got better as the game went on and his goal was superbly taken. He is beginning to show that there is more to him than just a "sitting" midfielder and that he can go forward and be a threat as well as keeping the ball well. I think this season the responsibility has been taken off him a bit my giving the central midfield a shared responsibility much like the Fabregas/ Flamini combination of 07/08. When Song ventures forward one of the others- usually Wilshere, or in today's case, Denilson sits in. Its a good system and probably more effective than last season's as I would predict that we will get caught on the break less this season. Lukasz Fabianski is getting better by the game, aswering his crtics (including me) with great performances in which he is claiming the ball brilliantly, making great saves and not putting a foot wrong. He's only going to get better and long may he stay in the team whilst he keeps up this form.

I was impressed today with the way Arsenal dug in and battled when they needed to and didn't let Man City gain any physical advantage over them. I thought when I saw Diaby wasn't playing that we might miss his strength but Denilson replaced him very capably and passed it around better than Diaby generally does. It shows how we have improved over recent seasons as a midfield of Fabregas, Denilson and Song is not a particularly physical one and yet they can get on with that side of the game no trouble and get a result whilst still dominating the game.

Additionally, this weekend has seen us move up to second staying above Man Utd, keeping the gap a 5 point one between us and Chelsea, it has seen us go 2 points further of the scum and leapfrog Man City, all on a weekend when we had a very hard game away from home. Not only that but we recorded our first away clean sheet since January 28th. And next we have two home games vs West Ham and Newcastle. Bring it on!